STUDY FINDS OBESITY AND PROSTATE CANCER ARE A DANGEROUS COMBINATION FOR SEVERAL REASONS

A study presented to the annual meeting of the American Urological Society last week indicates that obesity appears to: (1) increase a manÃ­s risk of developing prostate cancer (particularly in younger men); (2) increase the risk that the cancer will be a more aggressive and potentially deadly form of the disease (in all men); and (3) make the cancer harder to find because digital rectal examinations are more difficult to perform and because obesity tends to lower PSA levels in the blood due to hormone changes.

A previous study published last year in Journal of Clinical Oncology also found higher rates of the more aggressive form of the disease in obese men as well as higher recurrence rates after surgery. Post-surgical recurrence rates increased from two to three times depending on the degree of obesity.

The study also found that men with smaller prostates showed an increased risk of developing the more aggressive form of the disease.